Homemade Tomato Sauce and Chicken Broth

February 27, 2013

Two years ago I asked my readers a question: “Do we really do this?”. The full question was “do we Dominicans really use sopitas (bouillon cubes) so much?”. The question came after a discussion with some online friends on the subject. Coming from a family in which cooking with natural ingredients was the norm, I rarely ever use industrial seasonings in my home and in the recipes I write both for our blog and for my clients.

When I started writing Dominican recipes I often did list these ingredients. A few times some people complained that my recipes were not authentic because this dish, or that other, did not contain seasonings or sopita. As time passed I came to the conclusion that a) This is our blog, I write the recipes. And b) If I wouldn’t serve something to my family, why would I “serve” it to my readers?

Since we moved to a blog format nearly 3 years ago I have been re-writing and re-shooting all our old recipes. They reflect my cooking style better (plus better pictures). They won’t be to everybody’s liking, but there was never a chance I would please everybody.

Nowadays you see I list “tomato sauce” instead of “tomato paste” in my recipes. I list “chicken broth” or “vegetable broth” instead of bouillon cubes. You can buy pretty decent tomato saucesin the supermarket — which contain no artificial coloring, as opposed to a lot of tomato pastes. You can also buy low-sodium and low-fat broths. But, why not make it at home? It’s cheaper, it’s healthier, you know what’s in your food. Better yet, it’s easy, very easy.

Trust me, as recipes go, this cannot get any easier. It’s just “set it and forget it”, in the inmortal words of Ron Popeil.

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Comments

Love your blog. Am learning so much about ways to prepare plantain (one of my favourites) and making gluten & grain free bread from your site.

Could you please answer a couple of questions:

1. Is the flavour of the Chicken broth affected significantly by the colour of the bell pepper used. We have red, yellow/orange, and green here. I’m presuming that you’re using the green variety, but wondered how different it would be if a red one were used.

2. Would it affect the flavour of the broth significantly if a poblano pepper were used instead of a bell pepper?